Spare a thought for the staff of Spirit Halloween this coming week. October 14th through the 18th marks the busiest time of year for the costume pop-up chain.

Desperate shoppers with parties to attend will storm each of the seasonal retailer's 1,052 temporary stores seeking out the perfect look, be it a Miley Cyrus-inspired leotard or 'Duck Dynasty' camouflage.

Spirit will be hoping to shift every last $39.99 Miley costume. The same goes for their cheap recreation of the pinstripe suit R&B singer Robin Thicke wore during his controversial duet with Cyrus at the
MTVVideo Music Awards in late August.

By next Halloween, both pop culture references will be stale. Luckily, Spirit stocks enough generic witches and ghouls that as much as 40% of the seasonal chain's inventory will be repurposed for next year.

"This may be Miley's year, but pirates, zombies, cops and clowns are evergreen," said Steven Silverstein, CEO of Spirit's parent company Spencer Gifts.

"That's our secret sauce. You have to be able to carry over a significant amount of inventory year to year. In traditional retail, you might not be repurposing anything. For us, consistent themes remain, and we're repurposing 30% to 40%. We're not just trying to get rid of it."

About half of Spencer Gifts' estimated $250 million annual revenue now comes from Spirit Halloween -- a number that wouldn't be particularly staggering except that the costume subsidiary operates on full steam for just two months of each year. "It's in the ballpark of 50% of our bottom line," said Silverstein.

Spirit's business model isn't new; the chain has been around since 1983, and has since spawned a handful of pop-up competitors like Halloween City. It has, however, benefited from the death of the brick and mortar bookstore over the past five years. The closure of Borders and the rapid downsizing of Barnes &
Noble has meant Silverstein's team never has trouble finding vacant stores in busy downtown areas of just the right size to shill costumes (8,000 to 15,000 square feet is Spirit's preference).

Landlords view Spirit as a saving grace, happily taking $20,o0o for two months in a unit that would otherwise sit empty. What's more, the chain's garish neon signage is now well-known to shoppers given its 30 years in business. Silverstein says most neighboring tenants view a new Spirit pop-up as an attractive proposition rather than a nuisance as a result."We're bringing traffic to the town center," he said.

While Spirit operates a website in the off-season, 90% of its online business year-round comes in the 12 weeks leading up to Hallowe'en. Even in the middle of October, the emphasis is to drive customers from the site to an actual brick and mortar Spirit store since time is short and delivery can be expensive and uncertain. "There's better value that way for our customers," said Steve Vitale, director of e-commerce for both Spencer Gifts and Spirit.

Now, as Vitale and his team gear up for a surge in online interest starting the third week of October, he's ramping up server capacity with the help of IT giants Rackspace and ensuring the site won't crash under a deluge of
Google searches for 'Miley + twerk + costume.' "This is our holiday season," said Vitale. "It's make or break for us."